The $35 Raspberry Pi: The cheapest way to play Minecraft

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Over the last 18 months, the $35, Linux-powered, education-oriented Raspberry Pi credit-card-sized computer has experienced an almost-unabated success story. The 700MHz ARMv6-powered computer has sold tens of thousands of units to beardies and educational establishments alike, is still on back order, and has attracted hundreds of hackers who have contributed alternative operating systems, software packages, supplementary hardware daughterboards, and more. Today, we’re happy to announce that Raspberry Pi has made perhaps the biggest step towards mainstream adoption: Notch and his Mojangstas have unveiled Minecraft: Pi Edition.

“The possibilities are massive. You could organise the cheapest LAN party of all time, or use the Pi to learn the fundamentals of programming on a minuscule budget,” says Mojang. There isn’t an official release date yet, but Mojang has confirmed that the Pi Edition will be free. According to the Raspberry Pi Foundation, the Pi Edition is a port of the Pocket Edition, which was already running on the ARM processors within Android and iOS devices. Considering Android is a Linux-based OS, and Raspberry Pi runs a version of Debian Linux, porting the Android version probably wasn’t very hard.

In other news, RS (one of Raspberry Pi’s distributors) has shown off a camera daughterboard that should go on sale in the new year for around $25. The 5-megapixel camera will plug into the header pins on your Raspberry Pi (it’s a low-level piece of hardware, rather than some USB-connected peripheral), and is capable of capturing 1080p H.264 video at 30 fps. As you can see in the video below, the image quality is rather impressive.

The same Raspberry Pi blog post announcing the camera also mentions that the Foundation is also working on a “display board,” which is presumably an LCD display that will plug directly into the headers. Also on the hardware front, the Raspberry Pi Foundation recently published a blog post detailing the computer’s production process at a Sony factory in the UK.

As always with crazy devices like the Raspberry Pi, an over-excited community has sprung up around the tiny computer to dissect its current potential — and to discuss its future. Originally, the Raspberry Pi didn’t have a case, and so DIY types made their own — sometimes even using 3D printers (see below). Adafruit, of course, has a whole range of breakout boards to empower your hardware hacking needs. On the Raspberry Pi forums, you can find hundreds of thousands of posts, left by some 40,000 community members — some asking newbie questions, while others announce their success in building digital signage or a baby monitor powered by Raspberry Pi.

Ultimately, Raspberry Pi is shaping up to be an ideal, low-cost computer for teaching the basics of computer science (the primary purpose of the Raspberry Pi Foundation), but also the perfect hub for software and hardware hackers. At $50 for a Pi and the camera, and some coding, you have a low-cost security camera. With a touchscreen display and embedded in a wall, a Raspberry Pi might make the perfect interface for your security cameras or smart home setup. Perhaps most importantly, though, as our own Matthew Murray says, the Raspberry Pi’s biggest success is making DIY computing cool again.

The ExtremeTech link I followed a few minutes ago still says $25… from my iGoogle RSS feed.

8AM PST.

Other than a small phrase, loved the article.

How would you back up the Pi Community being “OVER-EXCITED?”

I am sure there may be a handful that might be over-excited, but in general I would say iPhone “next model” fans are generally much more excitable, standing in lines before the item is even officially at sales day 1…

Preordering is fairly common these days, especially with computer/console games, though I wonder how many actually are willing to line up around the block for the next incarnation of Link, from the Zelda franchise?

I am wondering what sort of news would lead you to use the adjective overexcited in this case?

I was thinking of ordering one for a project in the near future, but I don’t see much excitement over the prospect. I could as easily buy a used thin client and get more connectivity from a box capable of running Windows or Linux.

800Mhz think clients are sold around $35 all the time around the ‘net.

One problem people face when looking at a newer product is they don’t know about other products that have been around a long time and are capable of the same types of uses… Thin, or thick, clients are one such device.

They may not be EXACTLY as small as the Pi, but many are far smaller than one of those Giddeon Bibles left in so many motel rooms… and that’s not large unless you are comparing to a tablet or netbook…

Anyway, the Pi is cool and all, but I wouldn’t get overexcited about it..

The camera module is another matter.. if it can capture fluid 1080P video, well, that would make it beat just about every webcam available today under $50….

That would be cool enough to be exciting, but it would not blow my mind, though it does give more incentive to purchase a Pi sooner than later… you just won’t catch me waiting in any lines like Apple’s fanbois… I can be content to order online and wait as long as necessary for my product to arrive.

Need drives my purchases, even in console/computer games, and not desire.. this is what has kept me from purchasing a Pi in the past… no compelling need.

(RE: Games as needed.. Yes, relaxation is important for good health, and blowing the %^&# out of something is very relaxing for me on some evenings after work…)

I still like the article, it’s just the use of a word that does not fit in my perspective of the situation that bothers me today.

I’ll wait to see what you think is deserving of the wording used, in regards to the Pi Community being over-excited… (BTW: overexcited is also correct)

Thanks for another fun article. It’s not like it wasn’t informative or anything, I just wanted to know what lead to the description of the Pi Community. :-)

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